


Speak Oil Into My Ear

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Austin Texas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-17 23:45:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4685096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On an unbearably hot day, Sandy's search for shade brings him into the company of Cosimo Black. Cosimo may not be the best person for Sandy to spend time with, but he wants to spend time with Sandy, and Sandy's just a bit too inexperienced with the intensity of that wanting to tell him to slow down.</p><p>Everything progresses very quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Draughthouse

Like an oven. Like hell. Like fuck. It was too hot to think of original metaphors, that’s how hot it was.

It was almost too hot to write at all. Or draw, for that matter, not that Sandy would work on the kind of art he was known for in a crowded biergarten. He picked up his pen listlessly, scrawling a few words into his all-purpose sketchbook.

Wings.

Claws.

Flowers.

Logic behind robot anatomy. They don’t care but I do.

Everyone having a good time.

He closed his eyes and reached up to wipe sweat away from his forehead. As he did so, he realized that a few unruly curls had escaped from his short ponytail. Great. Well, it wasn’t as though anyone else at the Draughthouse, or in all of Austin, looked any more put together. He pushed his pen and notebook away from himself and stared idly across the small parking lot. The 3 bus trundled past. Young men in cut-off shorts with young women in transparent flowing skirts drifted into the beer line snaking out of the bar proper. They began chatting with the gray-haired couple dressed for hiking standing in front of them. One of the young women bent down to pet the corgi leashed to one of the tables just outside the door.

Sandy wondered what they liked that they wouldn’t admit to liking.

He sipped his still-almost-cool Texas Honey Ale and glanced around at the other tables in the biergarten, trying to gauge whether any of the groups at the tables shaded by the fence looked like they were about to leave. True, he did have the umbrella at his table, but with the movement of the shadow, in didn’t really do much in the way of cooling. He wanted to sit somewhere that had been in the shade for at least a few hours.

Unfortunately, everyone looked fairly camped out on that side of the biergarten. Wait, no! That group was leaving! Sandy gathered his things as fast as he could, but when he looked up again, he realized he hadn’t been fast enough. Sitting down at the table was a tall, slender man dressed in black jeans and a long-sleeved black t-shirt—a native Austinite for sure, Sandy thought, though in his personal opinion, when the temperature was merrily hovering over a hundred, no one human could claim to be cold.

No one human. The thought washed away the brief flash of anger Sandy had felt against the stranger for taking the table. What kind of creature could this man be? He flipped open his sketchbook to begin designing a being that would still be cold despite summer’s searing heat. A space alien, that would be a good start. A visitor to earth who could maybe only survive in climates like this one. And, sure, maybe he could design the alien from the stranger nursing a stout in the shadows over there. After all, he did have a very interesting face. Lean. Sharp. Hawklike profile. Sort of a classic vampire face, really.

Sandy exaggerated the cheekbones in his sketch, made the creature much taller and thinner than any human could possibly be. He didn’t have any coloring materials with him, so he just made notes alongside the initial sketch, along with possible other characteristics of the creature.

Gray skin?

Gold eyes? Good, always need that note of appeal but still inhuman

Shapeshifter? How and why?

Size-shifter? How and why?

Let’s give him some teeth. Unapologetic predator.

Yes, he could definitely come up with a little story or comic about something like this. After all, the conclusion was almost inevitable, for what do you do with a being who is always cold? You try to warm him up. He smirked, and unconsciously began to play with a loose lock of hair as he began to plot out that sequence. Maybe it wouldn’t be just one person who tried to help the alien out. Maybe it could be two—three—five even. Different ages, genders. Maybe he could throw in another alien. How to justify it, though? Mind control? He didn’t like that so much, but if he could establish that the mind control was supposed to be creepy…yes, that could definitely work.

He broke his train of thought to jot down some more notes, but when he looked at the table he saw a piece of paper that certainly wasn’t his tucked under his empty pint glass. Curiously, he unfolded it.

I don’t know what you’re thinking about over there, it read, in clear cursive, but I’m fascinated with how you look while you think about it. Join me in the shade? I’m the one in black.

Sandy stared at the note in consternation. This sort of thing didn’t happen—not in real life, anyway, and not to people like him.

Later, that seemed like as good a reason as any for why he did go and sit with the stranger.

“I knew you’d come over,” he said, smiling and revealing a mouthful of crooked, but healthy, teeth.

“Why’s that?” Sandy asked, prepared to leave if the stranger said something insulting.

“Because there’s curiosity written all over your face,” the man in black answered. “And you’re a cat that still has eight lives to go.”

“Are you saying I’m in danger of being killed?” Sandy rested his cheek in his hand for a moment. Up close, the stranger was not so much interesting as stunningly attractive. That is, if you didn’t mind your men a little monstrous-looking. Which Sandy certainly didn’t.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” he said, grinning behind his dark beer. “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back. So maybe it’s only the little death that the saying refers to.”

Sandy raised his eyebrows. “In that case, a cat only having nine lives seems like a raw deal.”

Impossibly, the stranger’s grin seemed to grow even wider. “What a conversation to have with a stranger. Maybe we ought to introduce ourselves. My name’s Cosimo, like the Medici.” He held out one slim, long-fingered hand, and Sandy noticed that he wasn’t actually wearing long sleeves. Underneath the close-fitting sleeves of his black t-shirt, his arms were densely covered in intricate tattoos. The black ink only stopped at his wrists.

That was…interesting. “I’m Sandy. It’s short for Alexander. But I guess that makes sense for me.” He quickly wiped his hand on his khakis before shaking Cosimo’s hand.

Of course Cosimo’s palm and fingers were dry and cool. Of course. What was the man, a reptile? He didn’t seem put off by the warmth of Sandy’s touch, though, and—though Sandy wasn’t ever sure if he imagined this or not—even lightly brushed the tip of his long middle finger against the inside of Sandy’s wrist for the briefest of moments. “Good to meet you, Sandy,” he said. “Alexander the Great. You have one thing in common with him I know already. You’re both left-handed. I noticed it while you were drawing.”

“That’s probably the only thing we have in common,” Sandy said.

“Oh, I hope there’s at least one more.” Cosimo tapped the edge of his empty glass. “I’m going to go get another. You want one?”

“Sure,” Sandy said, shrugging. He reached for his wallet, but Cosimo waved it away.

“It’s a just repayment for saving a shady table. What do you like?”

“Golden or blonde ales, usually. I just had the Texas Honey Ale, but I was thinking of trying a different one.”

“Good, I’ll surprise you,” Cosimo said, reaching out as he did so to lightly tug on the springy ringlet Sandy had twisted his hair into earlier. “Sit tight, conqueror of the world.”

As soon as he was out of sight, Sandy let out his breath in a rush and leaned against the fence. Was this really happening? Was this tall dark stranger—named Cosimo, but still a stranger—flirting with him? It seemed so, but he wasn’t used to this at all. People didn’t flirt with him, and in the stories he created he was used to justifying the wildest encounters with, honestly, fairly flimsy build-up. How the hell did this work between normal people? Not that Cosimo seemed entirely normal, and heaven knew he wasn’t—well, he’d let Cosimo take the lead then. He seemed comfortable enough doing so.

After a short while, Cosimo returned, carrying one glass full of translucent golden beer and one glass full of a beer so dark it was almost opaque. The foam on it even looked solid.

“For you,” he said, setting the ale before Sandy. “Bombshell Blonde.”

“Thanks. What do you have?” Sandy asked, trying to distract himself from Cosimo’s somewhat exaggerated process of getting his long limbs to fit at the picnic table.

“Left Hand Milk Stout,” he said, idly tracing a patter in the condensation. “I have a terrible weakness for everything sweet and dark.”

“Is that so? Are you sure you should tell your weaknesses to someone you just met?”

“Maybe I didn’t mean to. Maybe it’s just the tone of your voice that made me answer. It’s how you could conquer the world. Or maybe just me.”

Sandy sipped his beer without registering what it tasted like. Fucking hell, this heat. He could feel sweat trickling down his spine, but frankly, at this point, he didn’t think that was the weather’s fault anymore. Why did he have to be so grossly human while Cosimo sat there, serene as could be, looking like he traveled with personal AC. I wonder what would make you sweat—no, no, focus. “I suppose I should keep my ambitions modest,” he managed to answer after a moment, not sure if this defused the tension or exacerbated it.

“Modesty is overrated,” Cosimo said, licking foam from his lips.

***

Hours after the sun set, when Sandy insisted that he needed to go home so he could get ready for work tomorrow, Cosimo took a small notebook out of his pocket and wrote down his number and email on one of the sheets, then tore it out and slipped it into Sandy’s sketchbook. “Because I do still want to find out what you were thinking and drawing.”

“Get used to mystery,” Sandy said, always emboldened when it came to discussing his art in real life. He took the small notebook from Cosimo’s hands and wrote in his number and email. As he handed the notebook back, though, the smirk fell from his face. The email address he had written down was the one based on his pseudonym. If Cosimo googled it—well, too late now. He couldn’t explain why he wanted to change it without revealing what he wanted to conceal. Anyway, Cosimo probably wouldn’t give him a second thought as soon as he left. It was painful to think of, but monster-Cosimo could live on as a real character now. He could carry at least that much away from their conversation.

“Thank you,” Cosimo said, carefully tucking the notebook into the front pocket of his jeans. He stood up, looming over Sandy.

Ohmygod you’re so tall don’t blush don’t blush don’t blush

Sandy’s resolve was ruined when Cosimo leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Expect to hear from me soon. And goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams,” Sandy said, nervously waving goodbye as he walked off, face burning.


	2. Barton Springs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does contain a brief discussion of body image issues on Sandy's part, just fyi.

Sandy yawned, closing down photoshop. It had been relaxing, of course, to work on his art after a somewhat dull and tiring shift at Half-Price, but now, as the time crept past midnight, he was ready to sleep for a good long while. Before shutting down his computer, though, he decided to check the email account he used for his art one more time. Maybe there’d be another commission request. He had a couple of contacts who fairly regularly hired him to draw art for the Lagomorph series. Interestingly, based on their shipping addresses, both of them were actually local. One of these days he was seriously going to introduce them to each other.

There was nothing new in his inbox from either Jack or Aster tonight, though. Instead, there was a solitary message from one Cosimo Black. He suddenly felt as nervous as he had when he first began getting notifications of feedback on his work. Should he treat this email like those? Wait to open them until morning so that their contents wouldn’t trouble his sleep? No, he couldn’t. This situation wasn’t quite the same, after all. And as for troubled sleep, well, curiosity killed the cat, and he was pretty sure that he would die of curiosity if he didn’t read what Cosimo had sent him right away. Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t nervous, even afraid, at this moment. Considering that he had no idea what Cosimo had written to him, and a somewhat confused idea of what he wanted Cosimo to write to him, he felt justified in feeling brave as he clicked on the email to open it.

Sandy,

The ancient Greeks had tales in which a mermaid would swim out of the sea and grasp the prow of a ship during a storm. She would then ask the sailors, “Is King Alexander alive?” The only correct answer was, “He is alive and well and rules the world!” With that answer, the mermaid would leave and the storm would end. With any other answer, she would turn into a monster and drag the ship down to the bottom of the sea.

What have you been doing to make the mermaids so anxious about your health? I admire their devotion, though.

I know you’re alive, so I have a different question. Are you free tomorrow (or I suppose today) evening? It’s a full moon, which I think is always a good reason to go out at night, but what I’m inviting you to specifically is the free swimming at Barton Springs. Maybe you can reassure the mermaids while you’re there.

–Cosimo

P.S. You draw some mighty pretty pictures, Sandy. I don’t know what I like more—the variety of all the creatures, or the variety of the humans with them. Though I must say I didn’t see my favorite type represented as often as I would like. Yet perhaps I shouldn’t be concerned with two-dimensional versions—and I won’t be, if you’ll agree to come swimming with me.

Sandy felt himself blushing again. So Cosimo had searched his name! That wasn’t really so surprising, but his cool admission that he had looked through his art and liked it! It was unexpected, to say the least. He would have expected some sort of bafflement, or maybe discomfort. Maybe some cruder implications. He had gotten plenty of comments like that online, and he knew that what he drew tended to appeal to a limited and fragmented audience. That was why he had always kept his art totally secret from everyone he saw face to face. Now, to have the first person to show interest in him in years both know about his art and coyly approve of it was at once a little alarming and deeply, deeply hot.

Like Cosimo himself.

Sandy considered waiting to reply till morning—he would be able to give a more coherent answer with time, surely—but then a detail from the main note caught his eye.

“tomorrow (or I suppose today)”

He checked the timestamp on the email and, yes, it had been sent only a few minutes ago. Could Cosimo still be online? He glanced to the right, and, sure enough, the little speech bubble symbol was green. Without pausing to think, he opened a chat with Cosimo.

me: Hello there

I’ll go to Barton Springs with you

The cool water will do me good

Cosimo: Excellent

Though why the need for cool water?

Did my post-script wind you up?

Are you going to be wound up all day? When you’re with me I’m going to make it so that even the Barton Springs water doesn’t help

me: stop

you are presumptous

Cosimo: What happened to your shift key?

me: Are you smirking right now?

Cosimo: No, I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I’m licking my lips like a tiger that can almost taste his prey

me: is that a red flag

Cosimo: Most assuredly. Shall I pick you up tomorrow?

Sandy agreed and typed in his address almost without thinking. As soon as he hit enter, he realized there were all sorts of reasons why he shouldn’t tell Cosimo—who he still knew nothing about—where he lived. But it had seemed so natural to tell him. He shook his head. It wasn’t as if Cosimo seemed like a kind of person who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Instead, Cosimo seemed like he moved through his world without even taking into account the threat of refusal.

Cosimo: I’ll see you at 8:30 then

me: I look forward to it

But I have to go to

“Bed” No, don’t type bed.

sleep now

Cosimo: Rest up

Goodnight

And by the way

When you told me to have sweet dreams

I dreamed of you

***

Despite the fact that yesterday (or early this morning) Cosimo had seemed to be coming at him like a freight train, Sandy still was half-surprised when, at 8:29, he got a text that said, simply, “I’m here.” For some reason he hadn’t been thinking of him as someone who would show up to anything on time. Maybe he had even been thinking of Cosimo as someone who might want to make Sandy wait for his company. But as he gathered his towel, wallet, and a spare t-shirt, he realized that that only made sense if Cosimo was reluctantly allowing Sandy to pursue him. And that was definitely not the case. He wasn’t going to make Sandy wait for him, since that would mean that he was at the same time waiting for Sandy.

Outside in the fading light, Cosimo stood next to a black classic Mustang convertible with the top down. Unusually for Austin in the summer, the paint was pristine, shining like a pool of ink. It was that shine that prevented Cosimo from fading into it, dressed once again in black jeans and a black t-shirt. Yet his smile and his narrow-lensed sunglasses shone equally with the paint.

“I don’t think I match,” Sandy said as he approached. This was a tactical error, as it gave Cosimo an excuse to slowly look him up and down in his swim trunks, old t-shirt, and cheap flip-flop absurdity. He knew he didn’t even look like he came from the same planet as Cosimo, much less the same city. And that was a problem for most people, wasn’t it?

“Irrelevant,” Cosimo said. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I’m surprised you can manage with a car with no air conditioning,” Sandy said at a stoplight as they drove south. “Doesn’t it get to be a little much, with the black leather and all?”

“It would,” Cosimo glanced over at him, flashing his grin again. “But I only come out at night.”

Sandy looked at him oddly, but Cosimo didn’t notice, accelerating with a roar a fraction of a second before the light actually changed. Obviously he didn’t only come out at night, otherwise Sandy wouldn’t have met him at the Draughthouse. But it was still true. Whenever Cosimo went out, he brought night with him.

“How old are you, anyway?” Sandy asked at another stoplight.

“How old are you?” Cosimo countered

“Twenty-three.” Sandy wasn’t sure he liked the way Cosimo smiled after he answered, and he wasn’t sure he liked Cosimo’s answer:

“Older than you and younger than my car.”

“What do you do?” He asked as they approached Zilker park. The neon lights on the bars and restaurants lining the street were captured in the car’s black paint and concentrated into brilliant, radioactive-seeming highlights along the sharp edges of the Mustang’s body.

“Whatever I want.” Sunglasses removed, the neon reflected in Cosimo’s dark eyes as well. They flashed yellow as Sandy tried to figure out how to respond to this answer. Noticing his companion’s confusion, Cosimo laughed. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Sandy. It’s just true. Granny made some very canny mineral-rights deals back in her day, and I reap the benefits from it. So, I don’t really work. Though I do dabble in a great many things.

“What about you?”

“I work at Half-Price.” This conversation wasn’t going to end here, he knew it. And he wasn’t mentally prepared for it at all.

“And you’re saying that because we’re having this conversation without a screen between us? Really, Sandy, I’d rather you didn’t pretend.”

“Fine.” He clutched the bundle of his t-shirt and towel. “I draw xeno.” He turned to look out at the edge of the road. “And write it. No one else I’ve met in person knows.”

“But you have much to be proud of. Your art is beautiful. Sexy. Your talent with facial expressions, even on non-humans, is incredible.”

“Yeah, sometimes people have told me I’m wasting my talent drawing the kind of shit only freaks want.”

“Are you a freak, then, Sandy? Do you draw what you want?”

Sandy looked back at Cosimo. “I draw everything. It doesn’t matter what I want.” Because I don’t get what I want.

Cosimo didn’t disagree, but that might be due to him having to devote slightly more attention to driving as they turned into Zilker Park and Cosimo began to search for a parking space.

***

With the free admission and the temperature still in the mid-nineties after sunset, the large pool was fairly crowded, but Cosimo managed to capture a clear space to put their towels on the grassy slopes near the surrounding sidewalks.

“Cold water,” he said, setting down his things. “It’s something I like about this weather. It makes even the simplest pleasures feel ecstatically sinful.” He wasn’t quiet, and a few people on the sidewalk paused to look at him. With no self-consciousness (or at least no negative self-consciousness), he pulled off his t-shirt and wriggled out of his jeans.

Sandy was pretty sure he wanted him to stare, so he did. If he was honest with himself, looking away would have been impossible. The tattoos on Cosimo’s arms continued over his chest and back, less dense than on his arms, but still covering most of his skin with intricate designs in black ink. The only tattoo free space on his upper body below where his shirt collar hit was a strip of pale skin a few inches wide stretching from his collarbones, over the center of his chest, his lean, flat abs, and eventually disappearing behind the waistband of the very brief black trunks that he had worn under his jeans. Beyond the trunks, which seem to have been especially chosen to display to advantage a surprisingly nicely rounded ass on someone otherwise so thin, more designs crawl down Cosimo’s legs. They are the sparsest of all, almost as if they are still a work in progress, and Sandy can tell that they are mostly floral designs. But if the designs are a work in progress, the legs themselves are a completed masterpiece.

“Ballet,” Cosimo said as his grin began to return upon spotting Sandy’s slightly open mouth and following his gaze. “And pole.”

Sandy tore his eyes away from the long, lithe, limbs. “What?”

“Not anymore, of course. I didn’t play nice. Now. Are you going to get ready to swim as well?”

“I—I am ready,” Sandy said, gesturing at himself, the orange t-shirt from some UT event long past that he had picked up at Savers, and the bright yellow swim trunks printed with tropical flowers. The hems were lower than his knees.

Cosimo’s mouth collapsed into a petulant moue. “You’re not even going to take your shirt off?”

“Of course not,” Sandy muttered. He didn’t want to get into this.

“There is no ‘of course not’.” Cosimo gestured around at the pool. People of all shapes and sizes were walking around in all variations of swimwear. He bent down to murmur in Sandy’s ear—god, Sandy thought, is this going to become a habit with him? An extremely distracting habit?—“I’m going to be the only one looking twice, and I think I’ll like what I see.”

“You shouldn’t.” Sandy could accept Cosimo being interested in his facial expressions, his conversation, his youth, his obvious interest in Cosimo, and even his weird monster porn, but his pudgy little body? No way. “It isn’t normal.”

“Sandy.” Cosimo stood up and folded his arms. “Do I look like a person who has ever given a flying fuck about what I should do or what is normal?”

“Fine. Be some kind of pervert then. But I’m not taking off my shirt.”

“Hmm. Would it be going out of line to say that I would be interested in proving to you specifically what kind of pervert I am?”

Sandy stared at him. “I wish I hadn’t let you drive me here. This is just about my art, right? You don’t appreciate it. You just saw what it was and that’s what made you email me when you wouldn’t have, otherwise. You saw the porn and put two and two together and thought ‘here’s a little lonely guy who’ll do whatever freaky stuff I ask him to’. You probably thought you’d never have an easier lay in your life. Well. If you’re having that much trouble with your perfect body, maybe you’re the one with the problems. The ‘crazy’ that everyone says to stay away from.”

“I didn’t know about your art at the Draughthouse,” Cosimo said. “But I won’t lie and say it didn’t intrigue me. But who would not be fascinated by the ecstasy of the half-human? The hybrid? The monster? But if that was all, I needn’t have met you in person again.” He stepped closer. “You may be right that I am the kind of crazy normal people tell you to stay away from. I might be dangerous to you. But my potential insanity has nothing to do with my desire for you.” His smirk returned. “I’m flattered to hear that you think my body is perfect. I agree. And I also think you should be of the same opinion regarding yours. And that will be my last word on the subject for now. Let’s swim. And excuse me, if you will, as one who, as a child, always peeked under the wrapping paper of my presents.”

If he was lying, he was convincing, and if he wasn’t—Sandy jumped from the concrete ledge into the chilly water, his feet unable to find purchase on the slippery natural rock for a moment before he surfaced.

Cosimo followed, diving into the shallow water and prompting a lifeguard’s whistle. He surfaced well into the center of the pool, laughing. Sandy swam over to him smoothly, and he saw him raise his eyebrows. “So that’s how you impress the mermaids,” Cosimo said.

“Oh. I suppose. I like swimming.” Might as well be honest. “I like feeling weightless.”

“Like a star out in the ether,” Cosimo replied, swimming around him, rather clumsily. “Subject only to the supermassive black hole at the galactic center.”

“I’d like to burn that brightly.”

“And I’d like to be the black hole.”

When the pool closed, Cosimo drove Sandy back to his apartment. For most of the way back, they talked of impersonal things, like the moon towers and the bat bridge, but as they neared Sandy’s address, Cosimo abruptly changed the subject. “Meet me at Dolce Vita tomorrow. Five o’clock.”

“It’s Monday.”

“Do you work?”

“Not at Half-Price, no…”

“So meet me there. ‘It’s Monday.’ It’s a day of your life, Sandy. I see no reason to confine our acquaintance to the weekend.”

“Good point.” They pulled into Sandy’s apartment complex. Sandy got out of the convertible, and was only slightly surprised with Cosimo did as well.

“I will see you tomorrow,” he said, stepping close to Sandy.

“Yes.” Apparently personal space had been well and truly left behind by now.

“Perfect.” Cosimo had to bend down a bit to properly embrace him, and Sandy felt a thrill shoot through him at that—a thrill that only continued as Cosimo slowly ran his large, long-fingered hands over Sandy’s back. “Now goodnight,” he whispered. “I’m not going to wish you sweet dreams. I don’t care if they’re sweet or not. I just want them to be of me.”


	3. Dolce Vita

“So how was your weekend?” Tooth asked on their break. She worked in the collectables room, and was saving up to apply to MLS programs. She favored dramatic makeup and usually kept her hair a shade of emerald green. She and Sandy had become friends following an intense discussion of the motif of the transformed husband in fairy tales. “No one really wants the beast to change back,” she had said. “except the beast. He has to want to become human in order to be desirable in the first place. If he’s content with being a beast, he’s irredeemable. There’s no solution.”

“I went swimming with this guy I met at the Draughthouse.”

“Oh? What’s he like?”

“Well, I know he’s not a vampire since I saw him in the daylight.” Sandy shook his head. “He’s gorgeous. I don’t know how old he is. He lives off family money. He’s got all these tattoos…he’s really tall. He, um, seems to be really into me.”

“You know in Dracula vampires could go out in daylight? I’m just saying, your initial description only seems to lend support to the vampire thing.”

“Vampires don’t drink stout.” This one would if you’d let him.

“Bailey School Kids all grown up and fucked up, eh? But seriously. He’s into you. That’s good, right?”

“I’m torn between thinking he’s lying for god-knows-what reason and thinking he would literally eat me if he thought it was the fastest way to get close to me.”

Tooth laughed before catching Sandy’s expression. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Sandy nodded. “And the fucked-up thing is that if he did that my main hope would be that he wouldn’t share. And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t.”

“So…with all these feelings, you are…”

“I’m going to meet him as soon as my shift’s over, yeah.”

“Damn.”

“And, Tooth, if I don’t show up to my shift tomorrow, his name’s Cosimo Black. Look. I’m going to give you his email and phone number as well. Don’t do anything with them unless you need to.”

“Sandy, if you’re so scared—”

“But I’m not. I feel like I should be, but…I mean I don’t really think he’s going to murder me.”

“O-kay. But if anything gets shady, Sandy, call me. Any time.”

***

At Dolce Vita Sandy found Cosimo waiting for him outside in the bright flat sunlight that made the street and buildings seem like objects in a surrealist painting and threatened to make everything more surreal by melting it. As usual, he was dressed all in black. Today, though, his outfit was accented by an old-gold belt buckle cast in the shape of an oval of intertwining vines. It looked like something from Uncommon Objects, certainly nothing new or currently mass-produced—Sandy felt his face prickle with embarrassment when he realized he had been staring.

Cosimo, of course, seemed unperturbed.

“I think black and gold go very well together,” he said as soon as Sandy was close enough to him so that he didn’t have to raise his voice when he spoke. “The contrast is…eye-catching, to say the least.”

Sandy raised his eyebrows. “Why not wait for me inside?” he asked.

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t think better of it and drive away without me seeing you.”

“So driving away would be making the better choice? I told my friend at work about you. She thinks you’re a vampire.”

“I don’t drink blood for nourishment,” Cosimo said, pulling open the door and gesturing for Sandy to enter.

Cosimo ordered them both Dolce Vita Sorberitas and carried the chilled glasses outside to the patio, which, with a few more people at the metal tables than the inside seating area, felt somehow more private. Sandy sipped his drink as Cosimo settled himself next to him, instead of taking the seat on the other side of the table. The sorberita was unapologetically sweet: chocolate sorbet, vanilla gelato, Kahlua, Bailey’s, and vodka.

“Good, isn’t it?” Cosimo said, sipping his own drink and running his fingers in wavy lines through the heavy condensation on the glass. “Totally and completely indulgent. A drink for other people to pretend they’re ashamed of enjoying.”

“Not you?”

“The concept of a guilty pleasure is foreign to me.” He lifted his glass for a long swallow that left him with ice cream on his upper lip. He carefully licked it away and Sandy nervously clutched his drink. “Which is too bad, in some ways. I’ve read that feeling guilty about something actually increases the pleasure one experiences.”

“Well, I do feel kind of guilty about drinking this,” Sandy said, “and it is really good. But I’m not sure if the guilt makes it any better.”

“Try not feeling guilty, and compare. Then we’ll have a data point.”

“If not feeling guilty was that easy…”

“Everyone would do it? Why feel guilty, anyway?”

A glance at Cosimo told him this wasn’t a rhetorical question. He sighed before answering. “Lots of reasons. For one thing, it’s a Monday afternoon, and usually I only drink on the weekends. For another, it’s more expensive of a drink than I’d usually get, and you paid for it. For yet another, it’s an alcoholic milkshake, and I look like someone who’s had too many of those already.”

Cosimo leaned over to speak into Sandy’s ear. “Too many or exactly enough?” His voice was breathy and Sandy shivered even as he felt himself beginning to blush. “I favor excess and indulgence, Sandy. In myself and in you. I think you understand. When you draw…”

“Everything I draw is basically getting drunk on a Monday. I mean, disregarding reality? That’s what I meant.” He turned to face him, forced to back up to do so. “Cosimo, you’re making me really nervous today.”

“Not too nervous, I hope.” Cosimo sat up, looking a bit uneasy himself, now. “I want this to be a very pleasant evening, you know.” He leaned back in his chair, finishing his drink and watching Sandy out of the sides of his eyes. “I don’t want Alexander the Great to decline an unconditional surrender.”

Now that was an intriguing way or phrasing things. “Cosimo,” Sandy began, taking a drink to give himself a moment to gather his thoughts, “I’m having trouble figuring you out. How can you talk about unconditional surrender when most of the time you seem like, for whatever reason, a panther or something that’s getting ready to pounce on me? How does that all hang together?”

“It doesn’t.” Cosimo ran one long-fingered hand through his short black hair. “Like most people, I am a mass of contradictions, and I don’t bother trying to integrate them into a single front. I said I do whatever I want, yesterday. That’s true. I want to surrender, I want to conquer. These are bullshit metaphors. I want everything as long as it has to do with you. You don’t think you should be obsessed over. This is the one point on which I will disobey you. As soon as I saw you, lost in thought, I was lost. I have begun to obsess over you and I see no reason to stop. Now, I want—” he pauses and takes a deep breath—“I want very many things, and I think that you will want them too if only I could get a chance to offer them.”

“Are you…dangerous?” Sandy asked.

“I might be.” Cosimo answered. “I’m not normal.”

Sandy didn’t reply immediately. He finished his drink, noticing absently that even after only one he was starting to feel a little buzzed. The sweetness lingered in his mouth as he turned over what Cosimo had said. Contradictions? Yes, he was a mass of contradictions, and so was Sandy. And maybe that was the problem. Cosimo had noticed him as Sanderson Mansnoozie, but since that evening he had tried to be Alexander Mann around him.

But he wasn’t Alexander Mann unless he had to be, and Cosimo didn’t need him to be Alexander Mann. He wasn’t real life.

He began to smile as he realized that he didn’t have to wear his quiet, repressed persona around Cosimo. He didn’t have to pretend he was anything other than a wild dreamer, an architect of other worlds and strange pleasures. He too, could act like he had never heard the word “no”.

His smile had turned into a grin of Cosimo-like strength by the time he turned back to him. “Cosimo. I’m sure you already noticed this, but I’m not normal either. And I certainly shouldn’t pretend I am for you. So, hi. I’m Sanderson Mansnoozie, and I’m an artist.”

“It’s great to be properly introduced,” Cosimo said.

After their second sorberitas, Sandy told Cosimo that he had been planning an alien orgy with him before he had invited him to his table at the Draughthouse.

“Really?” said Cosimo. “I was right to want to know that. But why that, in particular?”

“Thought your ink was long sleeves.” Sandy placed his hand on his forearm. “Got to warm someone up who was that cold on such a hot day. And you still always look so cool. Got to make you sweat.”

“You will, you will,” Cosimo said into his ear, flicking his tongue against the shell just for an instant, too quick to be noticed by the people at the other tables. It was still enough to make Sandy let out a small, needy sound though, and Cosimo gives him a smug yet thoughtful look before going for more drinks.

Cosimo draped one long arm around Sandy’s shoulders as they worked their way through their third sorberitas. The patio was nearly deserted now, as they day only continued to get hotter, but that was just fine in Sandy’s opinion. It wasn’t like the air conditioning inside would have cooled him much anyway. Cosimo pressed a kiss to his temple, where sweat glistened. “Mmm, sweet and salty,” he murmured.

“That’s nasty,” Sandy said, laughing.

“I’m a nasty man.”

They had switched to a bench seat once one was free, and now Cosimo took advantage of it to reach across Sandy with his other arm. Looking him in the eyes, as if daring him to tell him to stop, Cosimo gently lifted up the hem of Sandy’s t-shirt ever so slightly, and traced his long fingers around the curve of his belly.

“Stop that!” Sandy hissed at him, swallowing hard. “We’re in public.”

Cosimo smiled, blinking slowly, lips slightly parted. “It was just a little touch. Why stop? Unless it turns you on more than it should—does it? When I show you that I want every part of you, even the ones our stupid society says aren’t desirable? Is it the taboo? Is it the guilt again? Is the guilt enhancing the pleasure?”

“Don’t,” Sandy breathed as Cosimo sent a curious hand between his legs.

“Indeed it is,” he said.

“We need to go somewhere else if you’re going to be like this.”

Reluctantly, Cosimo removed his hand. “I suppose that’s true. You’d never agree to be naked here.”

“You are seriously hung up on that.”

“Sandy, perhaps you’ve never thought about it, but you have these freckles…” He began pressing the ones he could see, above Sandy’s collar, with his fingertips. “How far down do they go? How dense are they? Do they make recognizable constellations? I need to kiss every single one, you see, and I’d like to understand what kind of a task I’ve taken on.”

“You’re not helping me calm down.”

“Think of baseball and finish your drink. I’ll drive us back to my house.”

There was something wrong with that. Maybe more than one thing. Sandy thought hard as he drank the melted gelato. “Are you even okay to drive?”

“Of course.”

“What will happen to my car?”

“I’ll pay for the tow.”

“Rich bastard.”

How in the hell could Cosimo be okay to drive now? Sandy couldn’t help wondering, over and over again, as they sped west in the Mustang. He certainly wasn’t. He felt pleasantly detached from the world as they headed into the hilly, tree-lined suburbs. Into the woods, never to be seen again. It seemed funny, suddenly, that this part of the city could feel like a wilderness to him. He really needed to get out of Austin more.

“Oh, these hills,” Cosimo muttered to himself as he shifted through the gears with a beautiful dreamlike looseness, or so it seemed to Sandy. “Completely forgot about how many there were.” Sandy yawned as he continued to curse the winding roads, the hills, and the low speed limits.

Soon though, they arrived at a large house high on a hillside.

“I’ve got a great view of the river and the city from the big living room window,” Cosimo said, ushering Sandy into the house, patting his ass as he did so, “but that’s not the view I want right now. Let’s go straight to the bedroom.”

Wait, this was really happening. Nervous again, Sandy asked, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel, um, obligated now that I’m actually at your house.”

Cosimo turned back and stared at him, hands on his hips. “Sandy. By certain measures I’ve kidnapped you to get you here. If you doubt my desire still, I really don’t think there’s anything else I can say.” He walked forward and took Sandy’s hands. “So come with me somewhere I can persuade you more comfortably.”

Of course Cosimo has a huge bed, and of course it has black sheets. The fantasy typicality of it helps Sandy relax as Cosimo lays him down, pulling off his shirt before Sandy can say or think anything. He tosses the clothing into a corner. “No more covering up now,” he whispers, trailing his hands down Sandy’s freckled chest and over his belly. “You look,” he says, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Sandy’s neck, “delicious.”

At the kiss, Sandy lets out the faintest audible sigh, and the smug look from before returns to Cosimo’s face. “Don’t even think about trying to be quiet,” he commands, before beginning once again to devote his full attention to Sandy’s skin. He kisses freckle after freckle, caresses every curve. He brings his mouth to Sandy’s ear again, tracing the shell with his tongue, sucking on the lobe and Sandy just moans, low and long. “My god,” Cosimo murmurs, his breath hot, his lips brushing the edges of Sandy’s ear. “I could play a symphony on your body, couldn’t I?”

“Would you?” Sandy says, or maybe just thinks he says. Maybe he just whimpers. Cosimo tears off his own shirt—Sandy can literally hear it tear, and that’s funny, isn’t it? But he’s not thinking too clearly right now, as Cosimo straddles him, long legs in their black jeans on either side of his hips and this can’t be—can’t be happening.

“My bauble, my toy,” Cosimo mutters as he presses his chest to Sandy’s , his fingers busily undoing Sandy’s ponytail. “Angel.”

“Does that make you the devil?” Sandy has no idea what he’s saying anymore, but he’s gotten a confused notion that Cosimo’s ink will rub off on him somehow, turn him black if he stays, and he wants that, oh, he wants that.

“Your personal incubus.” Cosimo runs his hands through Sandy’s hair, kisses him on the forehead, eyelids, nose, cheeks, chin, all over his neck. He brings Sandy’s hands to his mouth and runs his tongue along every finger. Sometimes he cannot resist talking and must let only his hands have the privilege of touch. “Sandy you blush like the dawn, your skin is like satin, your freckles are better than the stars—” he breaks off to lick one of Sandy’s small coral nipples. “I’m going to touch every inch of you and then I’m going to do it again, I’m going to figure out where you like to be stroked, where you like to be bitten, where you want my tongue, where you want my lips, by the time I’m done with you you won’t even know your own name.” He smooths his hands slowly down Sandy’s sides, scooting back so he can press an open-mouthed kiss to Sandy’s belly.

Sandy sits up on his elbows. “Wait,” he says breathlessly. “Maybe you should slow down.”

“I don’t think so,” Cosimo says, eyeing the bulge in Sandy’s khaki shorts.

“Cosimo, no, it’s just that no one’s ever paid this much…attention to me and I don’t want to disappoint…”

“Do you have a normal refractory period?”

“What?”

“Do you not know?”

“I—I know!” He looks away, and mumbles, “I think it’s actually shorter than normal. It annoyed my other partners.”

This time it’s Cosimo’s turn to be bewildered. “Your other partners were annoyed. Because they didn’t have to wait so long before they could make you come again.”

“Th—there’ve only been two. Back in college. I pursued them. I—I think they thought of me as a chore Cosimo I don’t want to bring this up now.”

“Neither do I. I have no desire to talk of cretins when I have perfection before me. But Sandy—I want you to relax. I want you to let yourself go. We have all night, and the sun hasn’t even begun to set.” He leans back down to speak into Sandy’s ear again. “I want to know how many times you can come for me. I wonder how many times it would take before you fainted dead away. Can you imagine it? I can. Oh there’s that healthy blush again. I hope you know that I want to do everything to you. I want you to do everything to me.” He turns Sandy’s face towards him and kisses him on the mouth, humming in pleasure as Sandy’s tongue eagerly pushes past his lips. “That’s right, Sandy,” he says when he breaks the kiss. “I want to be your fantasy. Your monster.”

He sits back, and Sandy sees him palm himself through his jeans for a moment before reaching out to remove Sandy’s shorts and underwear. He licks his lips once he’s able to look at Sandy fully naked, and his hand drifts back to his own crotch, almost subconsciously. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Sandy?” he says, trailing one finger of his other hand along the underside of Sandy’s cock, which throbs at the touch, another bead of precome forming on the tip. “So thick. I’m going to really have to stretch my jaw for you.”

“Cosimo…” Sandy whimpers.

“You’re ready to come from me just talking, aren’t you?” He bends down, wrapping his hand around the base of Sandy’s cock, gently suckling at the head. Sandy gasps at the sensation, his hips bucking upward without conscious thought.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be sorry,” Cosimo says, releasing him and bending forward so he’s on all fours, looming over Sandy. “Do you want to fuck my face?” Sandy’s eyes widen. “That’s what I said.” Cosimo runs his tongue around his lips obscenely, leaves them parted as he looks at the young man below him. “Do you want to fuck my face? Do you want to fist your hands in my hair and shove your fat cock into my hot wet mouth and down my throat? Do you want to feel me struggle and swallow around you until you come, hot and sticky, forcing me to take it all? I bet you do, sweet Sandy, I bet you do. I bet you want it so bad.”

Sandy shuts his eyes tight and nods. Cosimo leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. “I’ll kneel on the floor then.”

He looks so gorgeous like that, Sandy thinks, as Cosimo sits back on his heels to get his mouth at the right height. And he’s going to let me—me!—use him. He’d drawn things like this before, but this is far better than any fantasy. He steps forward, till his cock is almost touching Cosimo’s lips. “Open up,” he says, and he could swear that Cosimo shivers at the command as he obeys.

He’s tentative at first, but Cosimo is eagerly sucking him down, and the sight of his length disappearing between those kiss-reddened lips, combined with the glorious feeling of Cosimo’s mouth and tongue around him, soon spurs him on. He twines his fingers in Cosimo’s hair and begins to thrust. Cosimo only hums around him, looks up at him, pupils in dark eyes dilated. Sandy sees him reaching for himself, and the thought that this is somehow enjoyable for Cosimo too, that he wants him to have this power over him, makes him gasp, makes him thrust the harder. And Cosimo is good at this, so good, so accommodating, that Sandy knows he won’t last very long, but, heaven help him, it is when Cosimo gags just the slightest bit that sends him over the edge, spilling down Cosimo’s throat with a breathy moan.

Cosimo takes it all, as he said he would, and only when Sandy begins to soften does he release him. Sandy backs into the bed shakily, almost feeling unsure if that really happened—but it must have, he feels so boneless now—and watches as Cosimo licks his lips once more, and stands up in one fluid motion. “And that’s just the beginning,” he promises. His hands go to his belt buckle, and in a few moments, he is standing naked before Sandy.

He swallows. “Your tattoos go all the way down,” he says in awe.

“I thought I’d look silly with a bare ass. So yes, I left only the center stripe plain.”

The uninked ivory skin trailing down the center of his chest, abs, and hipbones is almost as good as a spotlight for his cock, which, like the rest of him, is long, elegant, and relatively slender. “Sandy,” he says, stepping forward till he’s looming over him, making his heart pound once more, “I’d like to fuck that plump and juicy little ass of yours. What do you think of that?”

Sandy is pretty sure he’s blushing over his entire body now. “I—I think I might like that. But I’ve never—not with another person. Sometimes, alone, I’ve…”

“Oh, yes,” Cosimo purrs. “I can just imagine you fingering yourself. A pretty sight indeed.” He walks to his nightstand and takes out a bottle of lube. “Why don’t you start preparing yourself? That might be more comfortable—at least before I join in the fun,” he says, taking one of Sandy’s hand in his own to emphasize how long his fingers are. Sandy coats his fingers with the lubricant and slowly presses a digit into his entrance. He sees Cosimo’s eyes flash eagerly, and his own cock twitches. He can’t be nearly ready again, can he?

“You gorgeous thing,” Cosimo says, sitting on the bed next to him. “So serious.” He kisses him on the forehead, cups his cheek in his hand. “You’re going to lose yourself. I’ll be careful, I’ll go slow. Until you tell me not to.” Seemingly unable to help himself, he begins to lavish attention on Sandy just as he did before, as if contact with Sandy’s skin is the only thing keeping him alive. “Oh, you’re going to be so beautiful when you’re undone,” he murmurs, just before moving Sandy’s hand away and pressing his own slicked finger into Sandy.

The intrusion is not so much painful as unfamiliarly deep, and as Cosimo carefully moves his finger in and out, Sandy moans, and realizes, that yes, he is indeed rising to the occasion once more.

“You’re going to take to this like you were made for it,” Cosimo says through a grin, adding another finger.

By the time he adds a third finger, Cosimo has found Sandy’s prostate and managed to make him gasp and writhe in the most beautiful ways. His cock is hard again, leaking precome, but Cosimo will not give him any friction until he himself is inside Sandy, buried deep in that peachy rump.

“I think you’re ready now,” Cosimo says, pouring lube over his own member. “But it’ll still be tight. So tight.” He withdraws his hand and Sandy looks up at him, chest heaving. He spreads his legs further apart and Cosimo can’t resist running his hands over the thick thighs for a moment.

He doesn’t allow himself to be distracted for too long, however, and with a stretch that causes Sandy’s eyes to widen, pushes the head of his cock inside. “Oh Sandy,” he breathes. “I was right, so tight, you’re so tight—I could—I could just ram you right now.”

Sandy clenches in nervousness and Cosimo groans. “You’re not helping.”

“I—I’ll try to relax,” Sandy says, “But keep going. I want you, I want all of you.”

“Oh my golden beauty,” Cosimo mutters, pressing another inch in, firmly stroking Sandy’s cock to try and distract him from any discomfort. He keeps going, keeps stroking, until he is finally completely in Sandy. Sandy’s eyes are shut tight, he’s biting his lower lip and breathing heavily. “Are you all right?” Cosimo asks him.

Sandy opens his eyes, looking up at Cosimo. “You feel huge. I think—” he blushes again—“I think I like it.”

“Oh, Sandy. Tell me to move, because you are testing my self-control.”

“Cosimo,” Sandy says with a wicked gleam in his eye, “you can ‘ram me’ now.”

And that is all the invitation he needs to thrust fiercely into Sandy’s tight heat, and that, along with Sandy’s glorious little—or not so little—moans, renders him almost incoherent, and all his praise for Sandy’s eager virgin hole is lost in sensation and it is all he can do to just repeat Sandy’s name. He almost loses himself as Sandy begins to jerk himself in time with his thrusts, the sight of his bauble lost in pleasure nearly too much for him, but he managed to hang on, just barely, until Sandy comes over his chest with a sigh, clenching around him, drawing him in.

And there are words in the sigh, Cosimo realizes, and the words are fill me. As soon as the meaning reaches his mind, he can only oblige.

Much later, Sandy lets his gaze wander greedily over the long, lean form beside him. This definitely wasn’t wise, and he’s surprised at some of the things he did, and surprised at how soon he wants to do some of them again. His hand trails along Cosimo’s side until he’s able to reach back and squeeze his ass.

“You’re going to be as insatiable as the humans in your drawings,” Cosimo murmurs, grinning once more, his eyelids heavy.

“You said you wanted to be the monster,” Sandy says.

“Ah, yes. And I meant it, too. See you in the morning, you wicked little cherub.”

“Sweet dreams,” says Sandy, snuggling closer.

***

Perhaps it would have been better if Cosimo had not answered the police at his door the next morning while completely naked, but as soon as Sandy rushed down in a too-long silk dressing gown, everything was cleared up without much trouble.

“I can’t believe I forgot about going to work,” he says rubbing his hand over his face.

“I’m glad you took precautions against me,” Cosimo says, wandering into the kitchen in nothing but ink. “It’s probably for the best. Care to stay in my lair today, though?”

“I’d love to,” Sandy says. To tell the truth, he’s all too inclined to stay forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe kids, don't drink and drive, keep fiction separate from reality.


End file.
